Thursday, May 26, 2005

That’s a Nice Robe You Got There

“I need help with my homework,” eleven-year-old Merav announced after dinner the other night.

Normally I run as fast as I can from these requests. As an immigrant father, it's not easy to cope with homework in Hebrew which, while it may be one of Merav’s best subjects, is certainly not mine.

“It’s geography,” she clarified.

Ah, now that I could help with.

“I need to know the capital cities. Read from the list and test me,” Merav said and she handed me a sheet with some 30 countries written down.

The list itself was a fascinating slice of local culture. The countries picked – I don’t know if it was by Merav’s teacher or was part of some state curriculum – demonstrated in a very immediate way what was important to Israel...and what was not.

There were countries I had barely heard of when I was a kid. Growing up in California in the 1960s, who even knew where Yemen was, let alone Syria or Morocco? But they were prominent on Merav’s list.

On the other hand, Central and South America – the capitals of which we had to learn by heart – were barely represented...except apparently for countries which had large Jewish populations that had immigrated to Israel.

I began the drill. Merav sailed through the first few cities with ease. She had clearly been practicing.